


Vacuum

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Second War with Voldemort, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:02:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5942995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Compared to the void - it was something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vacuum

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

The house smelled empty.

A distinct mustiness of dust and rising damp which irritated the nasal tubes and caused sneezing fits. A tang of stale beer, old tobacco, rancid cooking fat, wet dog. All the carpet deodoriser that Hermione had bought, showing them the Shake and Vac dance her mother had taught her, all the cleansing spells that Molly had done expertly and Tonks had performed half-heartedly had not managed to take the unlived in smell from any room at all.

The house sounded empty

The corridors deafened with silence and the soft snoring of portraits no-one dusted. If there had been footsteps on the terrazzo tiles in the kitchen they would have echoed around the house, waking Mrs Black, but she slept in peace. Kreacher's whining was stilled, even his almost noiseless padding had gone. No clocks ticked, and no-one knocked. Cavernous in its peoplelessness. All the more so for comparison with the activity of the previous summer.

The house felt empty.

There was a dampness to the air that comes with no human heat. Wizards did not generally use central heating or gas, houses were kept aired with roaring fires lit night and day. None of the fireplaces had been lit here for a long while. None except one had even been Flooed in for weeks. Even though it was late in the summer, a chill ran through the house as if all the ghosts of Hogwarts had moved in. There were no ghosts here. It might have been a happier place if there had been; at least one.

The house looked empty

In the basement Kreacher's den was abandoned; Hermione's quilt the only thing left, torn to shreds and stuffed under the boiler, the pictures of the Black family gone with him. With no wizard resistance, the Doxies moved back into the drawing room curtains. In the cupboard under the stairs a Boggart snored happily, left alone, snuggled up in a black bin bag filled with Father Christmas hats and old Christmas cards.

The kitchen had a look of sudden abandonment. Empty bottles of Butterbeer littered the surfaces. Plates and cutlery filled the large butler sink. In the dining room glittered on the floor, clear glass from Firewhisky bottles that had been emptied, then shattered around the fireplace as if thrown at the wall. Dark blue potion bottles stood in line, one by one, by the side of an armchair, as if they had been put down very carefully.

There were take-away cartons, pizza boxes everywhere, mouldering remains of Chinese, Italian and Indian meals.

The house seemed empty.

Except that it wasn't.

Remus had spent weeks in shock. Visited by all of the members of the Order in turn, whom he ignored, his face to the wall; unable to react, incapable of speech. Catatonic in his grief. One by one the Order drifted away, reassured that he was eating, and was no danger to himself. It was rare now that anyone flooed in to check on him, except Severus, just before the full moon. He never expected the werewolf to speak to him, and he was never disappointed. He checked that his charge was alive, and that's all he was ordered to do, and no more.

Remus was not even aware of the other occupant. Severus knew, the Weasley's knew, and of course, Dumbledore knew; None of them would have allowed it if there had been a full moon between Harry's sudden defection from the Dursley's 2 weeks after his 16th birthday and the start of term. They all knew that Harry needed to grieve, that Remus needed to lick his wounds, and perhaps together in the house of the man they had both loved they would heal faster. They had no idea that neither of them even knew that the other was close by. Both of them thought they were alone and were being left alone, with their grief and their memories.

Severus could have told them, told them both. He didn't. He did not have many weapons left, but those he had, he used.

Harry's anger, having burnt its way through the last weeks of term had finally scorched raw the earth of his heart, and having no emotion to feed on, finally flickered and died, leaving nothing in its place. In two months it had fed upon every molecule of feeling the boy possessed; he was too young and too alone to deal with such a torrent and it left him barren and hollow. The younger members of the group had tried everything but eventually even the stalwart Hermione gave up, went to The Burrow to wait with Ron, but kept sticking her head into the Floo every day in case either of them made an appearance. It was pointless. Harry only shuffled around the house in his father's cloak, knowing that the Floo was being watched, went invisibly to take-away shops, not ready to speak yet even to his closest friends. And Remus rarely left his room, conjured meals only when he got to the point of eating or dying. It was sometimes a hard choice to make.

Even such grief burns down eventually. It may never leave you, but there comes a time when you can raise your head from the pillow and wonder just briefly what is on the other side of the door, whether the world has had the cheek to have gone on as normal even though your soul has been torn inside out. . Grief, trapped like this is like a flame in a bell jar. It has to feed, or die. Remus dragged himself up on such a night and pulling on a thick towelling robe left the room. If there had been anyone to see him, they might have wondered why his eyes refused to look at himself in any of the mirrors. Feeling as if he had been in bed for a year, his limbs like cotton wool, he stumbled downstairs, seeking alcohol. Firewhisky. To fill the void. Or if not to fill it, to heat it up sufficiently so he could forget about it.

Harry was pacing the corridor, two floors above Remus' room. Just moving in a straight line, one two three four five six seven, turn one two three four five six seven. The monotonous movement and the mindless counting filled his mind so he did not to have to think. About anything.

There was a sudden cry from below him, a cry of wordless pain and Harry's stomach contracted in fright. Surely he was safe here? They couldn't have found him? Had Bellatrix managed to find her way back to the old house at last? Forgetting completely about the Fidelius charm, he grabbed the cloak from the floor he threw it over his head and with wand in hand made his way slowly and silently down to the first floor. Then with his back to the wall he stole along the corridor to the dining room, peered around the corner - couldn't be too careful, Moody could see through cloaks...

His eyes widened in surprise and not a little pleasure, which swiftly changed to concern. Professor Lupin was lying on the floor by the fireplace, tearing his sleeve from his robes and wrapping the cloth around a naked foot which was bleeding badly.

"Professor?" Without thought Harry performed a banishing charm on the broken glass, sending it shooting away, leaving a clear path between him and the fallen werewolf.

"Harry? When did you get here?" Remus was slurred, and his eyes were unfocussed, suspicious.

"Last week."

Remus' eyes drifted to the take-away cartons. "That would explain some things then." His eyes slid to Harry again, distrustful and angry. "Sent you as a last resort did they? Not s'rprised. Lupin can't be trusted. Lupin is a danger to himself." He sounded like a lost radio, untuned, unattended, no one listening to the small voice still giving out the tornado warning long after the village has been abandoned.

"No-one sent me."

Remus snorted, taking a swig from the bottle of whisky he had in his lap. "Likely story."

Harry's anger flared again. "No-one bloody sent me! All right? All they did was NOT stop me from doing exactly what I wanted to do, for once in my life! Perhaps they realise at long last I'm not a child anymore!" He didn't have to say who "they" were. Remus understood implicitly. All of his life he himself had been "watched." "looked after" "protected."

"For our own `tection." He mumbled, crawling towards the settee. Harry knelt and examined his foot. "Stickles." Said Remus pointlessly. "Have a dr'nk." He passed the bottle to Harry, who took it with a look of surprise, then put it on the floor while he retied the cloth around the Professors foot. Then he slumped onto the settee next to the werewolf and tentatively tasted the Firewhisky, choking immediately but taking another mouthful undeterred. The liquid burned down into his stomach and his legs felt hot and unstable, not dissimilar to a Jelly legs charm. As he passed the bottle back to Remus he looked him over.

"You look terrible Professor."

Remus gave what Harry could only describe as a growl, a sub-harmonic noise that made the hairs at the back of his neck stand up.

"Who cares. No-one left to notice. Course he'd be v'ry angry with me, for moping like this... Don't think I don't know that. `You're too maudlin Moony!. Moping Maudlin Moony....' " Remus eyes flickered away, his face shutting down expression. "S'ry. Dint mean to mensh. Him. You know. Hard, not to. Hard. That's funny!" and he snorted with laughter, spraying whisky all over Harry's robes. "Why d'you call m'Professor? Not Professor. Too grand for an old dog like me. mmMoony. You can call me Moony. If you'd like."

As he raised his head again to Harry it was as if he was suddenly sobering, his eyes, huge, slightly bloodshot, were almost the colour of the heather honey the Dursely's used, amber and translucent in their sadness, pathetic in their appeal. "But you wouldn't wanna do that. Not now...No-one left to call me Moony... Not even you."

Harry looked at the werewolf and his grief faded imperceptibly. Just a sliver of it shaved from the black hole where it resided and slid down his chest, melting into the floorboards, never to return. Instead of an inky blackness it transformed into a grey revenant shadow - still real, still there, but much less heavy, much more transparent. When he spoke, his voice was calmer and more true to himself than anything in the past year. Looking through the greyness of his sorrow, he realised with a clarity hitherto hidden by his emotions that the werewolf was his last true link to everything he had lost. He reached out and touched the man's arm, grasped it gratefully, feeling it twitch under his hand as if he'd burned him. Lupin was not used to being touched.

"I would be honoured. "Pr...Remus. Moony." the word, for all of its sensual onomatopoeia, was viciously hard for the boy to say. "But can you stand it?"

"Cn 'f you can." muttered the werewolf. Drunken tears were flowing down his face. "He'd be pleased. I think. Prongs too." He reached out and put his arms round Harry's shoulders and pulled him into a hug. Apart from a few short moments with Molly, Harry was, like Remus, starved of human touch and affection, and infected by the werewolf's tears, away from everyone he needed to be strong in front of, his own wellspring broke, anger transmuting itself into hot bitter sobs, long overdue and all the more needed for that. He clutched the slim body beside him desperately, unable to do anything else for a long long time. Remus slowly sobered, Harry's need anchoring him, pulling him out of his own selfish vortex of loneliness.

As the boy's weeping dissipated, Remus held him close, stroking his hair, realising, as Harry did, that they were linked to each other, that Sirius would want them to draw comfort from the other's strengths.

Harry finally looked up, his eyes green liquid. "Sorry." Was all he said. Remus didn't speak, but lowered his mouth down to Harry's, not knowing why, or what to expect, or what the consequences might be, led only by his solitude and desperation to connect with another soul who understood them. To his numbed astonishment, Harry pushed himself up into his arms, and returned the kiss with a harsh ferocity that only a sixteen year virgin old can achieve. Tears mingled with saliva, whisky melded with saline, helplessness dissolved in fear and longing, mutual grief blended into mutual need. Before Remus could marshall his thoughts, Harry was straddled over his lap, his hands on either side of his head, and he was drowning in the swell of his own erection.

"H'rry." he managed, trying to break the contact. The boy took no notice and became a little more insistent, driving his tongue deep into the werewolf's mouth, one hand slipping between the opening of his robe, and pulling it apart. Remus tried once more to stop the boy before it all ended in a horribly embarrassing moment for both of them, by holding him firmly by the shoulders and forcing him back, but he had forgotten how stubborn Potters could be.

"Moony," the boy groaned, pulling his glasses off, making Remus' resolve dissipate in wet black eyelashes framing green fires. "Moony," he said, in a voice from the past that tore into the wolf's heart with shards of green glass. "Let me in." The robe fell open and Harry dropped onto Remus' chest as the man fell sideways along the settee, both sighing with relief and regret. Harry's mouth was open and frantic, making love to Remus' thin torso, his mouth wide open, the teeth making tearing motions causing Remus to cry out with the unutterable pleasure of the tiny pains. He shrugged the robe from his shoulders and arms and folded Harry against his bare skin, fumbling with Harry's buttons as he attempted to keep his concentration. The boy's hands were around his waist, his nails digging into the skin, as he slid his mouth further southwards, lingering over his navel and tantalising the line of hair that started there. As Harry's mouth engulfed him at last Moony wept for everything that had gone before and for everything that had yet to happen.

Eyes shut tight so they could not see what they were doing, speech silenced, so they did not remind each other of who they were, just lips and tongues, taste buds and fingertips, skin, sounds, touch. The unbearable softness of a palm grazing hair follicles, the sudden passion of fingers tangled tightly in hair, the fire of two souls both lost and both truly unable to give each other the one thing they craved more than anything else. Two sets of lungs breathing in incoherent rhythm reaching crescendo together; crying out the wrong names.

In the sweet surcease, as they lay in each other's arms, neither of them thought of the other. Both sets of eyes were open, and the man they had loved, the one who had loved them both would have been gratified to see that perhaps, just some of the emptiness had disappeared. It didn't help much. It was not what either of them wanted.

But compared to the void - it was something.


End file.
